The vast majority of the published papers dealing with the treatment of wounds in the past few decades reported that extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) used in wound repair is easy in manipulation, noninvasive, safe, effective, and well tolerated by patients. However, little is known about the mechanism of ESWT in wound healing to date. In this article, we reviewed the literature to identify the potential cellular and molecular mechanisms of ESWT in the process of wound healing, and the results of the literature showed that the mechanism of ESWT in promoting wound healing is the result of heterogeneous biological effects.